Metabolite Encyclopedia › Methylation and osmolytes
Betaine does two jobs that have nothing to do with each other. It lets a cell hold onto water when the outside is saltier than the inside, and it hands off a methyl group to turn homocysteine back into methionine.
- Also calledTrimethylglycine, TMG
- Made inLiver and kidney, from choline
- Found inWheat bran, beets, spinach
- Two jobsOsmolyte and methyl donor
Three things worth knowing
It is named after beets. It was first isolated from sugar beet juice in the nineteenth century, from Beta vulgaris, and the name stuck. Beets are still one of the richest dietary sources, though wheat bran carries more.
Your kidneys are built around molecules like this. The inner kidney has to work at salt concentrations that would wreck an ordinary cell. Cells there accumulate betaine internally to balance the outside pressure, and the reason betaine works for this is that it does not interfere with proteins the way plain salt does. That is the definition of an osmolyte.
It is one of the few methyl donors you can actually eat. Most of the body's methylation runs through folate and vitamin B12. Betaine provides a second, independent route to the same destination, which is why betaine intake and blood homocysteine tend to move in opposite directions.
Two roads to the same place
Where you meet it in food
- Wheat bran
- Beets
- Spinach
- Quinoa
- Shellfish
- Wheat germ
Betaine is water soluble and leaches into cooking water, so boiling beets or spinach loses a noticeable share of it.
Questions people actually ask
What is the difference between betaine and betaine HCl?
Betaine HCl is the same molecule paired with hydrochloric acid and sold for a completely different purpose, related to stomach acid. The betaine discussed here is the plain form, also called trimethylglycine.
Does your body make it?
Yes. The liver and kidney make betaine by oxidizing choline. You also get it directly from grains and vegetables.
What is an osmolyte?
A small molecule a cell accumulates to balance the water pressure across its membrane without disrupting the proteins inside. Betaine is one of the classic examples.
How does it relate to sleep?
There is no established relationship. It appears in AHARA's metabolomic map of its elixirs, which is how it ended up in this encyclopedia.
Betaine is one of more than 2,000 metabolites AHARA mapped across its Reishi and Lion's Mane elixirs. You can browse the rest of what is in the bottle.
Open the Metabolite EncyclopediaReferences
Craig SA. Betaine in human nutrition. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;80(3):539-549. doi:10.1093/ajcn/80.3.539
Lever M, Slow S. The clinical significance of betaine, an osmolyte with a key role in methyl group metabolism. Clin Biochem. 2010;43(9):732-744. doi:10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2010.03.009
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